καὶ φιλοτιμούμεθα, εἴτε ἐνδημοῦντες εἴτε ἐκδημοῦντες, εὐάρεστοι αὐτῷ εἶναι. 10 τοὺς γὰρ πάντας ἡμᾶς φανερωθῆναι δεῖ phrase," whether at home or abroad," (i. e. "in the body or out of the body," "alive or dead at Christ's coming.") compare Rom. xiv. 8., “Whether we live or die we are are the Lord's;" Phil. i. 20., "Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death;" 1 Thess. v. 10., "Whether we wake or sleep, we live together with Him." 10. Tous yàp Távтas, "I am anxious to be well pleasing to him; for I as well as all of us shall have my secret thoughts made known." (For φανερωθήναι, see verse 11.) KоμionTaι, "reap the fruits of.” τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος, properly, "through the means of the body;" but probably the classical usage is not here observed, and it is to be taken as in verse 7., as though it were Sià owμaтos. It connects this with verse 8. Tрòs à Éπраžεν, "in consideration of." The Vulgate reads propria, i. e., dia for Sia. Tischendorf (with C. and some of the Fathers) substitutes paulov for Kaкóv B. (e sil.) D. E. F. G. J. K. The chief characteristic of the judgment here brought out, is that of the complete revelation of the deeds of man, as in 1 Cor. iv. 1-6. Compare Rev. xx. 12.: "The books were opened." The image of Christ on the judgment seat, is the same as that in Rom. xiv. 10. (where, how ever, in the best MSS., it is "the seat of God;" one of the many passages where the two ideas are used as convertible, and where the various readings confuse the two together); and the expression is peculiar to these two passages, being evidently taken from the tribunal of the Roman magistrate as the most august representation of justice which the world at that time, or perhaps ever, exhibited. It was a lofty seat, raised on an elevated platform, usually at the end of the Basilica, so that the figure of the judge must have been seen towering above the crowd which thronged the long nave of the building. So sacred and solemn did this seat and its platform appear in the eyes, not only of the heathen, but of the Christian society of the Roman empire, that when, two centuries later, the Basilica became the model of the Christian place of worship, the name of Bua (or tribunal) was transferred to the throne of the bishop, which then occupied the same place in the apse that had before been appointed to the judgment seat of the prætor. The word Bua, as so applied, is peculiar to the Greek of this time. In classical Greek, it was applied (not to the judgment seat, which did not exist in Grecian states, but) to the stone pulpit of the orator. In the LXX. εμπροσθεν τοῦ βήματος τοῦ χριστοῦ, ἵνα κομίσηται ἕκαστος τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος, πρὸς ἃ ἔπραξεν, εἴτε ἀγαθὸν εἴτε κακόν. it is used twice (Neh. viii. 4.; 2 Macc. xiii. 26.) for a "pulpit;" usually, as in Ácts, vii. 5., for 66 a step." In the New Testament (with the exception of Acts, vii. 5.) it is always used for "a judgment seat." The more usual figure for the Judgment, is of a "throne" PARAPHRASE IV. 7 V. 10. "Such is the mission which I have received, so important, and so open and unreserved; and, as God in His mercy has entrusted me with it, I cannot faint or grow weary under it. I cannot faint, though there is much reason why I should. In order to show that this extraordinary work is Divine and not human, I am encompassed with all outward infirmity, which thus becomes a proof, not of my weakness, but of God's power. My worn out fragile frame is like an earthenware vessel enclosing some costly treasure: whichever way I turn, I am pressed by difficulties; but a passage of escape opens before me. I am bewildered in my course, but I find my way again. I am pursued by the enemy, but not left behind as a prey to his attacks. I am trampled under foot, but not to death. I carry with me, at every moment of my course, the marks of pallor and torpor and lifelessness from the body of the Lord Jesus ; but it is only that I may show forth more clearly the same 'life in death' that He showed in rising from the grave; for my whole life, from beginning to end, is perpetually given up to death for the sake of Jesus, in order that in this perishable framework of corruption the living power of Jesus may be shown. Death works his will within me, whilst life works her will in you; you are safe, because I am in peril; you live, because I die. But in spite of this contrast between my death and your life, I am sustained by the faith which is described in the Psalm. I believe,' I have faith in the unseen Saviour, and therefore I speak' the message of the Gospel, with the full confidence that, however different our positions now, the time will come when the resurrection of the Lord Jesus will extend to me as well as to you; when you will receive the best proof that all that is done by and for me, is done by and for you; when the gift of life given to me through your united prayers, will call forth a still fuller burst of thankfulness from you to the glory of God. With this con fidence, as I said before, I cannot faint;' there is a nature, a being, a man, in my outward frame, which is gradually decaying; but there is another being in my inner self, which is day by day restored: there is a pressure of affliction; but it is overbalanced a hundred thousand fold by the heavy weight of glory, which lasts, not like the affliction for a short passing moment, but for a vast future; for I fix my view, not on what is visible, but on what is invisible, knowing that the visible is temporary, the invisible belongs to the ages of God. The habitation in which I now dwell on the earth, is like the tent in which I tread, or which I made with my own hands; like the tent to which the human body is so often compared, it may be taken down and destroyed; but there is another habitation, a solid building, whose builder and maker is God, made by no art of hands, like the tent of human tentmakers, but belonging to the ages of God, awaiting me in the regions of heaven. In this my present tent I groan under the heavy weight of the longing desire for that new habitation which will envelope me within its curtains from above. Not that I wish to leave this present life with its vesture of human affections and thoughts; but that I fondly trust, that this old vesture will receive a new vesture over it, that this mortal frame will only cease by being swallowed up in a higher life. And the ground for my trust is, that He who has fashioned and worked out my existence for this termination, is no less than God himself, who has clearly given a pledge of the future, by that earnest of the lifegiving Spirit of which I before spoke. "With this confidence, therefore, and feeling that our whole journey through life is sustained by trust in what we do not see, not by what we do see, I am well pleased to think that the time is coming when this banishment from my true heavenly home will be ended, and when I shall be with the Lord at home for ever. "And the thought of this future home, not only gives me confidence, but impresses upon me my awful duty. For the time is coming when I, with all of you, must be made completely known before the judgment seat of Christ, in order that each may receive the award of the acts done in the earthly habitation of the body." THE difficulties of the Apostle, and the support which he received under them, both from the sympathy between himself and his converts, and from the cause in which he was engaged, are dwelt upon equally elsewhere. The peculiarity of this passage is the insight which it gives us into the Apostle's feelings, under the sense of approaching decay and dissolution. In this respect it stands alone. The burst of triumphant exultation over the power of death in the 8th Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and in the 15th of the First to the Corinthians, is more an expression of the overwhelming sense of God's love through Christ, than of any personal expectation or sentiment for himself. The description of the coming of the Lord, in 1 Thess. iv. 15-19., is for the comfort of his readers, not of himself. The two passages which most bear comparison with this, 2 Tim. iv. 6—8.; Phil. i. 20-24. (especially the last), whilst expressing the Apostle's personal feelings respecting his end, represent his calm expectation of |